Project Summary

The client organization is a nonprofit group, employed by volunteers, that sources used bicycles and sends them to high needs areas in South Africa. They had a four-year-old, unwieldy, blog-style website. They desired a polished, formal look with a strong, simple message and call to action. ESPRESSO.digital provided the entire development and design of the non-profit website on a tight deadline.

Feedback Summary

The client is extremely satisfied with the work of ESPRESSO.digital. They describe them as explicit about goals, requirements, and timelines. The service was of very high value for the money, and they sincerely appreciate that ESPRESSO.digital was willing to do a large portion of the work pro bono. The client would highly recommend ESPRESSO.digital to others.

Background

Please describe your organization.

I am a board member for an organization that sources unwanted bicycles and sends them to South Africa. Transportation is an issue in that region, and bicycles really are a game changer. Our group is a chapter of a larger organization that started in Canada. It’s 100 percent volunteer, and 100 percent of the money goes to sourcing and shipping the bicycles to South Africa.

Opportunity / Challenge

What was your goal for working with ESPRESSO.digital?

We had a four-year old website that was a blog style, with pages that were irrelevant. We needed them to redesign the website to look a little more formal and give it an action feel.

Solutions

Please describe the scope of their work.

They built the entire website from scratch. We had some written material, and lots of digital images, but they really took nothing and made something out of it. We had lots of great content, but through creative use of images, color scheme, and copy writing, he made the whole thing come alive. They did a complete redesign of the site, from what was pretty clunky to something rather impactful.

What was your process for selecting ESPRESSO | Studio 5 with which to work?

I had worked with Gregor [Schmidt, co-founder and creative technologist at ESPRESSO.digital] in the past. He did a web redesign of my son’s cycling team here in Seattle. He rebuilt the website from again, something that was clunky to incredibly impactful and flashy, a really exciting site. That was when I first met him and was really impressed with his work. I decided to start a blog three years ago, and he created the framework and the visuals for me. Most recently, I approached him to do this favor Bicycles for Humanity and had hoped he would help us, and he did.

Can you provide a ballpark dollar figure for the size of the work that they’ve done for you?

He charged us $1,000, but it was mainly donated time. It was probably about $10,00 to $15,000 of design work, if he had charged us.

Results + Feedback

What were the results of the project?

The project was completed in May of this year [2014]. The website was completed in a few weeks. We had maybe a month between the time that we decided we needed a new website and our annual fundraiser. He literally got it up and running two days before that for us, so they must have worked night and day to pull it off.

Do you have any metrics or feedback to indicate the success of the work?

I haven’t looked at any metrics to see how it’s been working so far, but people have been really impressed with the site. We are super pleased with it overall. Of our peer groups, it’s really one of the finer sites. It’s not too complicated and really shows what we’re asking for: To donate money and donate bikes.

Can you talk about their performance?

They are explicit in terms of what they want and their timelines. To start the project they had me fill out a few forms, to try to get a sense of what emotions we wanted to convey, actions we were trying to get, and who our target audience was. All of that was used in terms of building a framework for the data. They were very good at defining what requirements they needed from the customer, executing on the conversation, setting up follow up, and expectations on when they needed it by.

Is there anything unique about them that really makes them stand out compared to other companies?

What I find with them that is different from most is the balance between time and return. They speak my language in terms of balancing great visual intensity with an understanding of cost impact and value for your money.

Looking back on the work, is there any area that you think they could improve upon or something that you might do differently?

No. Not really. What I find really impressive is that they hit the mark right on the first take, and it was pretty much refinement after that.

We ask you to rate ESPRESSO.digital on a scale of one to 100, with 100 being the top score.